I hope you were able to get something good from Amazon. I kind of doubt it, though, because most of the “deals” I saw were pretty dumb. (Which is to say that the products were dumb; I didn’t bother to check the markdowns on things that didn’t interest me.) Way to oversell Prime Day, Amazon.

If you’re wondering, I bought a 3-pack of $50 gift cards and got a $10 Amazon coupon free. (Yes, I fully intend to give the gift cards to myself. Does that make me a bad person?)

In other news, I tried to set up Family Sharing through iCloud but my dad had trouble connecting to iCloud after I sent him the invitation. I hate it when shit like that doesn’t work, especially when I’m trying to give my parents access to my iTunes movies (not that they necessarily want to see The Host, but I have all six Star Wars movies, too). And I just found out that Showtime now has a standalone streaming service; I’m not particularly impressed by the movies currently being offered, but I guess premium cable networks are more about the original programming now. I can’t wait for Starz to launch a streaming service (complete with 30-day free trial); hello, Outlander binge-watch. (By the bye, that’s how I spent most of Thanksgiving – binge-watching the first half of Outlander season one. Yum.)

I am trying not to lose hope, but it’s getting harder. It’s been a month since my interview. They told me that they didn’t want to drag the interview/hiring process out. I always assumed I’d hear something either way because I got the interview through one of my brother’s friends; that’s the only reason I haven’t completely lost hope.

I know that I shouldn’t have focused solely on this one interview, but the timing was just So Perfect; it felt like fate. And now fate is letting me down and it hurts more somehow. Is it too much to ask for the universe to just help me out for once in my fucking life?

Anyways…

The All-Star Game is on my TV right now. Manny Machado’s uniform top is too big; I find that really annoying. Oh good, a country singer doing “God Bless America” where “Take Me Out To the Ballgame” is supposed to go – stop making everything about the fucking troops! (Newsflash, U.S. Army, Independence Day isn’t fucking about you! Sorry, those Army commercials have been driving me nuts.) I don’t usually care about All-Star Game uniforms, but the hats are rad 🙂 And I love the genius at Fox who just played the WKRP in Cincinnati theme song.

There, that’s just the right mix of depression and weird stream of consciousness for my blog.

(It’s Ghostbusters, by the way. I’m not sure if we can be friends if you didn’t know that.)

I hadn’t seen that movie in ages, but for some reason I’ve been quoting that Bill Murray line a lot lately. This is particularly weird since I wasn’t doing it during Lent, when I actually need clever euphemisms. Apparently I really wanted to watch Ghostbusters. I finally saw part of itthis afternoon (yay!), including “mother puss bucket.”

Of course, it’s also possible that I just really hate my job. (The saying “mother puss bucket” in my head started at work after all.) It could also be both. It’s probably both.

I just learned something remarkable: Ryan Vogelsong, professional pitcher for the San Francisco Giants, went to Octorara fucking High School. I get that this is not remarkable to most people, but you’ve got to understand that I was thisclose to going to Octorara. The Octorara school district encompasses the town that I technically grew up in (in the sense that our address was Cochranville). I am floored, you guys.

I think what’s weirdest to me, though, is that I only learned of this tonight. I knew that Vogelsong went to Kutztown and had briefly been in the Phillies’ system, but I’d had no idea that he and I had been fucking neighbors growing up. (Neighbors is probably stretching it, but you get the idea.) If I had gone to Octorara, he and I would’ve had one overlapping year of high school (his senior year/my freshman year). And here it is, 20 years later, and he couldn’t make it through six innings because the Phillies hit two home runs (thank you, Ryan Howard and Cody Asche).

I thought I would watch this whole game, but now I’m not so sure. I am definitely going to stop writing this post, though.

Last Thursday night was pretty busy (by my standards). I got my eyebrows waxed and, since I was going to the shopping center with the Wegmans and the Panera, I decided to go grocery shopping and reward myself with Panera for dinner. There was just one tiny problem: I left my house without my wallet. I was driving to my appointment when I realized that my wallet wasn’t in my purse but there wasn’t enough time to turn around and get my wallet if I wanted to make it on time (and they are sticklers about punctuality). I have a waxing package, so I didn’t owe any money, but I felt bad that I couldn’t tip my waxer. (This was the worst part of the whole experience. Well, that and the driving without a license-induced paranoia.)

When I realized that I didn’t have my wallet I figured that I’d have to give up the rest of my errands, but once I had a minute to compose myself in the waiting room I remembered that I’d set up Apple Pay on my phone. Plus, I was pretty sure that Wegmans and Panera both take Apple Pay (spoiler alert: they do). I’d never used Apple Pay before, but it was pretty easy. And damn if it didn’t totally save my ass. Good job, Apple.

And then, there’s Apple Music. It’s not that I don’t like Apple Music as much as I don’t get Apple Music. I can’t figure out how to get the For You screen to give me some new content nor can I tell it which suggestions I’m not really interested in. And Apple seems to have no interest in answering my questions; the only thing I can find on their website is a bunch of hype about how wonderful and individualized it is (which, again, why can’t I tell you what I don’t like?).

Plus, there’s that whole thing where the multi-billion dollar tech giant wasn’t going to pay royalties for the three-month trial. Had no one at Apple ever heard of a write-off? I appreciated Taylor Swift’s Tumblr post simply for bringing that injustice to my attention (plus, y’know, she was spot on). And it’s great that Apple decided to do the right thing, but that should’ve always been their plan; the public shaming should not have been necessary. This hasn’t destroyed Apple for me (I mean, I signed up for an Apple Music free trial), but their reputation has been tarnished. I still want an Apple Watch, though.

Have you ever been yelled at by a 90-year-old Jewish man for putting on hand lotion? I have. Twice. (Ok, I’m actually not sure if he was mad about my use of hand lotion or hand sanitizer. And it doesn’t matter because I’m not about to stop using either.)

Here are some other things that happened while I was on blog hiatus:

Brand New blessed us with new music!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! (There aren’t enough exclamation points in the world to adequately express my excitement.) I’ve even heard “Mene” on the radio twice: once on Alt Nation about a week after they released it and on Faction last Friday. I was driving back to work from lunch when I heard it on Friday. (Why should I get a long weekend for the national holiday to end all national holidays just because said holiday fell on a Saturday? My boss is such a fucking asshole.)

I saw both Brand New and Neutral Milk Hotel (!) in concert. I had to pass up the Brand New show in St. Pete, though 😦 (I’ll get over that someday.)

I was not emotionally prepared for the Phillies to trade Jimmy Rollins. Not at all.

The powers that be have decided on a global release day for new music. I’m all for that, but the morons chose Friday as that day. Friday?! It’s an abomination. Everyone responsible should be tried for crimes against humanity. It starts this Friday and I don’t think I will ever get used to it.

You know what else is an abomination? The live-action Jem movie. I saw the trailer before Pitch Perfect 2 and it fucked with my head. That is not a Jem movie; that is a movie about a teenage YouTube star wherein all the characters just so happen to have the same names as the Jem characters. (I’m still so upset about this that I won’t even link to the trailer.) Still, it might improve the market for my vintage Jem dolls.

I’m sure there are other things, but that’s all I can think of right now. Obviously there were changes in my life, too, and someday I’ll write a post about them. Today is just not that day. I will try to get better about posting.

Oh, and I still haven’t heard anything about that dream job I interviewed for. I’m trying to remain optimistic (no news is good news, right?), but it’s getting harder. I know it’s only been three weeks, but it’s been three weeks. If you have any positive vibes to send my way I would really appreciate it. Really.